1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a distributed speech recognition system. More particularly, the invention relates to a distributed speech recognition system in which a central speech processor receives speech files from a plurality of users, distributes the speech files to a plurality of speech recognition engines and monitors the effectiveness of the various speech recognition engines to improve the distribution of the speech files.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recent developments in speech recognition and telecommunication technology have made automated transcription a reality. The ability to provide automated transcription is not only limited to speech recognition products utilized on a single PC. Large systems for automated transcription are currently available.
These distributed speech recognition systems allow subscribers to record speech files at a variety of locations, transmit the recorded speech files to a central processing facility where the speech files are transcribed and receive fully transcribed text files of the originally submitted speech files. As those skilled in the art will certainly appreciate, such a system requires substantial automation to ensure that all speech files are handled in an orderly and efficient manner.
Prior systems have relied upon a central processing facility linked to clusters of speech recognition engines governed by a speech recognition interface. In accordance with such systems, speech files enter the central processing facility and are simply distributed amongst the plurality of speech recognition clusters with no regard for the efficiency of the cluster to which the file is assigned or the ability of specific speech recognition engines to handle certain speech files. As such, many of the faster speech recognition engines linked to the central processing facility are oftentimes unused while other, slower, speech recognition engines back-up with jobs to process.
With the foregoing in mind, a need currently exists for a distributed transcription system, relying upon a plurality of speech recognition engines, which efficiently controls the distribution of jobs amongst the plurality of speech recognition engines. The present system provides such a transcription system.